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De La Rue escapes doldrums with a sterling performance

Banknote printer De La Rue today rounded off an eventful year — which saw it lose its chief executive and issue a profits warning — with a solid set of results that boosted its shares almost 5%.

The company, which is waiting to hear whether it has won a lucrative contract to print banknotes for the Bank of England, increased its pre-tax profits by 37% to £59.8 million during the year ending March 29.

Its present 10-year contract expires in March 2015 although it recently lost out to Australia’s Innovia to supply material for the BoE’s new plastic notes.

De La Rue said its improved performance had been driven by a three-year turnaround programme that has seen it strip out millions in costs.

The company was, however, forced to issue a profits warning in October because of increased competition and lost its chief executive Tim Cobbold to UBM earlier this year.

Philip Rogerson, executive chairman, said the company remained open-minded about doing deals given the current boom in merger and acquisition activity.

He added: “De La Rue is in fundamentally better shape today than it was three years ago.”